Saturday, July 23, 2011at 0700 CESTI am taking a day off from bringing music news, in light of the terrible events in Norway yesterday:
Government buildings in Oslo rocked by a huge explosion - 7 dead. An hour later: Man started shooting youths at a
summer camp run by the Social Democrat party with up to 700 people on a small island. He killed more than 80 of them before he was captured.
It is believed one man did both these things. Last May he bought 6 tons of fertilizer, which could be used to make a huge bomb.

5 - The attack at Utøya was an attack on Norway's future. This island has been the site of
yearly political summer camps for socialist youth from all over the country for decades.
Half of our Prime Ministers since WWII got part of their political schooling there.

Among the kids that were killed or survived the attack many were and are likely to become
future leaders of our country. What they went through yesterday will be a backdrop to the
rest of their lives and political careers. This experience will color politics in Norway for decades to come.

Had the perpetrator turned out to be a foreign fundamentalist group, the risk of a wave of hate would have been even greater.

It is now important that we find a way to react that can preserve our principles of democracy,
openness and freedom, and refuse to let this turn us on the road to becoming a police state.
All signs indicate that we will be able to build on our strengths and continue developing
our democracy, humanism and multiculturalism.